Lowland League round-up: Spartans stay in title hunt; Naismith says draw at Strollers a fair result

Spartans remain hot on the heels of Lowland League leaders Rangers B after a convincing 3-0 victory over Capital rivals Edinburgh University at Ainslie Park.

Their 18th victory of an impressive campaign leaves the Ainslie Park club nicely positioned in second, just two points adrift of the Ibrox youngsters in what is shaping up to be a grandstand finish in the race for silverware and promotion to the SPFL.

Sean Brown gave Dougie Samuel's men a first-half lead before a Cammy Russell brace wrapped up the points after the interval.

The students, meanwhile, remain second bottom with relegation to the East of Scotland League becoming more likely by the week.

Cammy Russell scored a brace against the students. Picture: Mark Brown.

Elsewhere, Civil Service Strollers and Hearts B played out a 1-1 draw at Christie Gillies Park.

A Callum Sandilands penalty put the visitors in front before striker Innes Lawson restored parity for Gary Jardine's men.

Strollers remain in seventh spot while Steven Naismith's wee Jambos are 13th.

"A draw was probably a fair result,” Naismith said afterwards. “We probably didn’t do enough with our final ball to create those great chances. We had a shot off the line, and we score one that’s offside, but I would debate whether it was offside or not. It was very tight.

"We just lacked that wee bit of killer instinct. Throughout the whole game they were a dangerous team who tried to counter-attack and make it end to end. I thought we dealt with that really well apart from the one time where we concede the goal.

“We’re disappointed not to get the three points, but it’s been a tough week. We’ve had some injuries and given some opportunities to the younger boys. We’ve probably got fewer points from the week than we feel we should and could’ve got, but with the number of players out and in terms of the experienced lads who were out, that made things difficult. Overall, in every game this week, we have shown some really good moments of what we’re trying to do, but on the flip side of that, we have conceded some really sloppy goals.”